大象传媒

When WW2 commenced, I was working in Bush House, on the Strand in a reserved occupation and lived in South East London.

My friends and I were in a walking and rambling group, and we used to go to youth hostels on our weekends. One young man named Jim Harris used to be very attentive to me, but with the bad news that 鈥渨ar had started鈥� my life changed completely.

My younger brother volunteered for the RAF and my elder brother was called up into the army. Father was in a reserved occupation and had to do night work. Mother was so upset with the raids that she went to stay in Essex with an aunt; this left me alone at night without friends or family.

Those of us that were left in the walking group decided that we should join a group that worked on farms at weekends and that the money we earned would go to the Red Cross. Our accommodation was chicken houses!! They had been scrubbed out. We met other people from London and enjoyed our outdoor work.

One weekend I came home to find that our house had been damaged in a raid, it was still standing but the windows and doors were blown out, I decided to clear up the next day but in bed that night we had another raid and the ceiling came down on me. There was dust everywhere. The next night I took my mattress downstairs and put it into a sitting room at the back of the house. I was so tired that I slept but was woken when something warm jumped on me. I thought that it was a German but I put my hand out to touch it and found that a cat was seeking a warm bed. Never mind I still had my job. Work had to go on.

In the meantime my attentive young man came home on embarkation leave. We went up to the West End to a show, of course the sirens had to sound off, and the wardens made us go into a shelter under one of the large shops in Oxford Street. Whilst there we heard that the Caf茅 de Paris had had a direct hit ant that two famous film stars had been killed. We were in this shelter for hours and my legs began to ache. There was no furniture or furnishings. Jim went to see if he could find me a seat and returned 鈥� wait for it 鈥� with a galvanised bucket!! How鈥檚 that for the last night for just on seven years. A very romantic ending.

After a very long wait Jim came home. He had spent all those years in the Royal Sussex Regiment, marching through the Burmese jungle.

We married three weeks after he came home. He sadly died eight years ago, but I have many happy memories and two daughters who are equally as attentive as Jim was.

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